Now Eddie must be Obeid in Lebanon, too

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The streets of Matrit . . . boys play yesterday in the home village of Eddie Obeid, below. Top photo: Jamal Saidi

Labor's Eddie Obeid is making trouble in his home village, write Kate McClymont in Sydney,
and Ed O'Loughlin in Lebanon

"This isn't an environment that's normal, not for the Christians or the Muslims. The two sides are unhappy," says a spokesman for mayoral candidate Yola Obeid.

What is upsetting the tiny village of Matrit, in Lebanon, is the arrival of NSW MP Eddie Obeid and 22 of his relatives to lend a hand in the inaugural council elections.

But Mr Obeid is not supporting his niece, Yola. Rather, he backing the local Muslim candidate, Salame Salame.

Charlie Obeid, a tiler from Strathfield, was in Matrit yesterday. He dismissed talk of his relative Eddie's involvement in the election. "It's all bullshit," he said. "The people who give them this information - ya know worr I mean - they are lying."

"Village" is almost too grand a term for Matrit. It's a couple of dozen traditional stone houses, clinging to a high scenic ridge above north Lebanon's Mediterranean coast. There is a petrol station, a ruined school, a decrepit mosque and two Maronite churches. No pub, not even a shop.

The total population is reckoned to be not more than a 150 or 200 - and most of them now live abroad or in the cities of the coast. Despite its seeming inconsequentiality, for the past couple of weeks Eddie Obeid has installed himself in one of the dozen or so houses in his native village doing what he does best: working the numbers.

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Tomorrow, Matrit will hold its inaugural mayoral elections. Yola Obeid is a local solicitor and the daughter of Mr Obeid's late brother Joseph, who was a senior judge in Lebanon. Like most Matrit natives, she lives outside the town.

Telephoned by the Herald at her home in Tripoli yesterday, Ms Obeid would not say a bad word - and very few words at all - about her returned uncle. Relations, she said, were "good".

Asked about his involvement in the campaign, she said: "I can't answer that. My uncle is there in Matrit, in the muktar's house [head man]. You can ask him by yourself."

But Ms Obeid's spokesman said Eddie Obeid had organised for the area to have the election and that the normally harmonious village was up in arms about it.

"It's not normal," he said. "It's disruptive. It's his [Eddie's] fault. It's his work and it's not legal what's happened. He has no right to do this. It looks like the government wants to help him. He has contacts in the government."

Mr Obeid has been running the campaign from the Matrit house of his sister Melba and brother-in-law Joe Indari. Locals say the village is so small there was no need to have a local government and that they had got by very well without one in the past.

And until Mr Obeid's arrival in Matrit a fortnight ago, the numbers were favouring a clear win by Yola Obeid, a Maronite Christian. But with the steady trickle of 22 of Eddie Obeid's friends and relatives - including four sons, his wife, a daughter and at least three nephews, plus business associates - arriving in recent days, the prospects of Mr Salame, a local teacher, have been looking up.

Mr Obeid, who was dumped as minister for fisheries after the last state election, sought leave from his party to travel to Lebanon on compassionate grounds. According to the Labor Party whip, Peter Primrose, The upper house MP applied for leave, saying that he had "urgent family business" to attend to in Lebanon. In a conversation with Mr Primrose, Mr Obeid explained that a relative had died and that he needed to sort out the estate, a claim which other relatives of Mr Obeid dispute. Mr Primrose said Mr Obeid originally sought to be excused from six parliamentary sitting days from May 4 to 13. On March 30 he had written again, asking to be excused from next week's sitting days as well, in order "to conclude the matters pertaining to my family's affairs in Lebanon".

The Opposition whip accepted Mr Obeid's request and granted him "a pair", meaning that when a vote is taken during a division an Opposition MP will not vote.

"I would imagine that they would be with in their rights to withdraw the pair," Mr Primrose said yesterday, adding that he had been trying to contact Mr Obeid in Lebanon to clarify reports that he was involved in local government elections there.